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ADDRESS 



OF 



PRESIDENT WILSON 



AT THE 



BROOKLYN NAVY YARD 
BROOKLYN, N. Y. 

MAY 11, 1914 



SERVICES IN MEMORY OF THOSE WHO LOST THEIR 
LIVES AT VERA CRUZ, MEXICO 




WASHINGTON 
1914 





D. OF D 
MAY & 



ADDRESS. 



[r. Secretary : I know that the feelings which char- 
acterize all who stand about me and the whole Nation 
at this hour are not feelings which can be suitably ex- 
. ssed in terms of attempted oratory or eloquence. 
h^y are things too deep for ordinary speech. For my 

i part, I have a singular mixture of feelings. The 
feeling that is uppermost is one of profound grief that 

se lads should have had to go to their death; and yet 
there is mixed with that grief a profound pride that 
they should have gone as they did, and, if I may say it 
out of my heart, a touch of envy of those who were 
permitted so quietly, so nobly, to do their duty. Have 
you thought of it, men? Here is the roster of the 

/y — the list of the men, officers and enlisted men 
and marines — and suddenly there swim nineteen stars 
out of the list — men who have suddenly been lifted 
into a firmament of memory where we shall always 
- their names shine, not because they called upon us 

admire them, but because they served us, without 
asking any questions and in the performance of a duty 
which is laid upon us as well as upon them. 

Duty is not an uncommon thing, gentlemen. Men 
ire performing it in the ordinary walks of life all 
i und us all the time, and they are making great sac- 
rifices to perform it. What gives men like these pe- 
culiar distinction is not merely that they did their duty, 
but that their duty had nothing to do with them or their 

44595—14 (3) 



own personal and peculiar interests. They did i 
give their lives for themselves. They gave their lr t 
for us, because we called upon them as a Nation I 
perform an unexpected duty. That is the way 
which men grow distinguished, and that is the only 
way, by serving somebody else than themselves. Anc 
what greater thing could you serve than a Nation si 
as this we love and are proud of? Are you sorry i 
these lads? Are you sorry for the way they will be 
remembered? Does it not quicken your pulses 1 
think of the list of them? I hope to God none of you 
may join the list, but if you do you will join an im- 
mortal company. 

So, while we are profoundly sorrowful, and whik 
there goes out of our hearts a very deep and affections 
sympathy for the friends and relatives of these lads 
who for the rest of their lives shall mourn them, 
though with a touch of pride, we know why we do not. 
go away from this occasion cast down, but with our 
heads lifted and our eyes on the future of this country, 
with absolute confidence of how it will be worked 01^ 
Not only upon the mere vague future of this country, 
but upon the immediate future. We have gone dov 
to Mexico to serve mankind if we can find out the way. 
We do not want to fight the Mexicans. We want to 
serve the Mexicans if we can, because we know how 
we would like to be free, and how we would like to 1 
served if there were friends standing by in such caj< 
ready to serve us. A war of aggression is not a war in 
which it is a proud thing to die, but a war of service is 
a thing in which it is a proud thing to die. 

Notice how truly these men were of our blood. 
mean of our American blood, which is not drawn fror 
any one country, which is not drawn from any on 



stock, which is not drawn from any one language of 
the modern world; but free men everywhere have sent 
their sons and their brothers and their daughters to 
this country in order to make that great compounded 
Nation which consists of all the sturdy elements and of 
all the best elements of the whole globe. I listened 
again to this list of the dead with a profound interest 
because of the mixture of the names, for the names 
bear the marks of the several national stocks from 
which these men came. But they are not Irishmen or 
Germans or Frenchmen or Hebrews or Italians any 
more. They were not when they went to Vera Cruz; 
they were Americans, every one of them, and with no 
difference in their Americanism because of the stock 
from which they came. They were in a peculiar sense 
of our blood, and they proved it by showing that they 
were of our spirit — that no matter what their deriva- 
tion, no matter where their people came from, they 
thought and wished and did the things that were Amer- 
ican; and the flag under which they served was a flag 
in which all the blood of mankind is united to make a 
free Nation. 

War, gentlemen, is only a sort of dramatic represen- 
tation, a sort of dramatic symbol, of a thousand forms 
of duty. I never went into battle; I never was under 
fire; but I fancy that there are some things just as hard 
to do as to go under fire. I fancy that it is just as hard 
to do your duty when men are sneering at you as when 
they are shooting at you. When they shoot at you, 
they can only take your natural life; when they sneer 
at you, they can wound your living heart, and men 

10 are brave enough, steadfast enough, steady in 
their principles enough, to go about their duty with 
regard to their fellow men, no matter whether there 



are hisses or cheers, men who can do what Rudyard 
Kipling in one of his poems wrote, " Meet with tri- 
umph and disaster and treat those two impostors just 
the same," are men for a nation to be proud of. Mor- 
ally speaking, disaster and triumph are impostors. 
The cheers of the moment are not what a man ought 
to think about, but the verdict of his conscience and of 
the consciences of mankind. 

When I look at you, I feel as if I also and we all 
were enlisted men. Not enlisted in your particular 
branch of the service, but enlisted to serve the country, 
no matter what may come, even though we may sacri- 
fice our lives in the arduous endeavor. We are ex- 
pected to put the utmost energy of every power that 
we have into the service of our fellow men, never 
sparing ourselves, not condescending to think of what 
is going to happen to ourselves, but ready, if need be, 
to go to the utter length of complete self-sacrifice. 

As I stand and look at you to-day and think of these 
spirits that have gone from us, I know that the road is 
clearer for the future. These boys have shown us the 
way, and it is easier to walk on it because they have 
gone before and shown us how. May God grant to all 
of us that vision of patriotic service which here in 
solemnity and grief and pride is borne in upon our 
hearts and consciences! 



O 



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